The present invention generally relates to material handling devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a hand-truck for transporting objects placed thereon.
Hand-trucks have been widely used in the art of material handling as devices to transport items too difficult to be carried by hand, or by several persons, including appliances, loads stacked upon a pallet, containers containing heavy materials or boxes packed for shipping. Hand-trucks are also generally used to transport loads relatively short distances or in places or spaces where mechanized trucks or forklifts are incapable or unable to operate.
In environments where there are numerous activities which require the use of hand-trucks, such as in warehouses, shipping centers or manufacturing plants, the use of hand-trucks is vital to the smooth operation of the particular endeavor. However, in many instances hand-trucks have shortcomings which either prohibit or reduce the efficiency at which to perform the operation.
One such example is the storage of the hand-truck when not in use, especially when there are several hand-trucks contained within a specific area. Hand-trucks tend to be bulky, and in so doing take up space when not in use. This can be problematic in instances where the particular environment has either limited floor space or the number of hand-trucks used for any particular application makes available floor space an issue. Even the storage of a single hand truck can be problematic if space is extremely limited.
As mentioned, hand-trucks are often times used to transport pallets of materials placed thereon. These pallets are typically placed upon the hand-truck by a mechanized forklift, with the hand-truck then being moved to another area of the facility, where it is either unloaded by hand or by another forklift. Inherently, this requires the use of a pallet, and pallets themselves can be quite bulky and require storage space. Pallets are also typically manufactured from wood, and are subject to frequent stresses throughout their lifetime, which tends to damage them quite quickly. This leads to the expense of purchasing additional pallets to replace destroyed pallets, repairing damaged pallets and disposal of destroyed pallets.
Another problem with hand-trucks of the prior art is in the design of the handle which is used to tote or direct the hand-truck. There are known in the art several handle designs, including retractable handles, detachable handles, fixed handles and stowable handles. Each handle is designed with a particular application in mind. However, there does not exist a handle that can aptly be applied to several applications and yet still retain its effectiveness for directing the hand-truck in each situation.
Another problem of hand-trucks of the prior art is the difficulty in loading or unloading the hand-truck. In some situations, the hand-truck is loaded or unloaded by hand. Whether there be one object or a plurality of objects to load or unload, the loading or unloading may be difficult due to the fact that the hand-truck is on wheels, and any type of force used by a person to place or remove an item from the hand-truck causes the hand-truck to move, especially on smooth surfaces such as concrete. This is problematic because the worker may lose grip on the item, or the item may slip from the hand-truck, causing either damage to the item, the worker or both.
The present invention overcomes these shortcomings by providing a hand-truck that can be easily stored, provides a handle that can be used in multiple applications, can itself be moved either manually or by forklift to obviate the need for pallets, and can easily be anchored to the ground to prevent movement of the hand-truck.